ICYMI: Iranian 'Greens' sought Obama's support in '09 - he refused them
Iran's 'Green' movement reached out to the Obama administration seeking support during their 2009 mini-revolution. Obama had his priorities, and they have not changed (via The Corner).
But the ranks of reformists in Iran have been depleted. Many
activists are angry at the Obama administration for failing to support
them six years ago in a rebuff that hasn’t been previously reported.
Iranian opposition leaders secretly reached out to the White House in
the summer of 2009 to gauge Mr. Obama’s support for their “green
revolution,” which drew millions of people to protest the allegedly
fraudulent re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The demonstrations caught the White House off guard, said current and
former U.S. officials who worked on Iran in the Obama administration.
Some U.S. officials pressed Mr. Obama to publicly back the fledgling
Green Movement, arguing in Oval Office meetings that it marked the most
important democratic opening since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Mr. Obama wasn’t convinced. “‘Let’s give it a few days,’ was the
answer,” said a senior U.S. official present at some of the White House
meetings. “It was made clear: ‘We should monitor, but do nothing.’ ”
The president was invested heavily in developing a secret diplomatic
outreach to Mr. Khamenei that year, sending two letters to the supreme
leader in the months before the disputed election of Mr. Ahmadinejad,
said current and former U.S. officials.
#ThanksObama. And thanks all you stupid Jews who supported him.
ICYMI: Obama-Kerry gave away the store before the 'negotiations' ever began
Earlier this week, MEMRI reported that President Hussein Obama secretly conceded the right to enrich uranium to 'moderate' Hassan RohaniMahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2011 as a precondition to starting 'negotiations' with Iran.
American administration spokesmen have explained the nuclear
agreement with Iran as both leveraging the opportunity created by the
election of a pragmatic Iranian president, Hassan Rohani in June 2013,
and as vital because the sanctions have not set back Iran's nuclear
program, and the West has grown weary of enforcing them.[1]
However, it has emerged that the U.S. began secret negotiations even
earlier, in 2011, during the presidency of the extremist Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. Moreover, during that time, not only had the Western
countries not lost interest in maintaining the sanctions, but they had
intensified them significantly after the beginning of the secret
negotiations – both inMarch 2012, when sanctioned Iranian banks
were disconnected from the SWIFT system, and in July 2012, when the
European sanctions on Iranian oil sales were imposed.
Furthermore, according to recent reports in Western media from
Western sources, the Obama administration had, since President Obama
took office in 2008, constantly and consistently pushed for negotiations
with Iran. President Obama's messages in this regard to Iran's
leadership on various levels – letters, public speeches, and so on –
began as early as 2009; details of these media reports and of Obama's
messages will be published in a separate MEMRI report.
Additionally, it is evident from statements by top Iranian officials
that the secret contacts initiated by the Obama administration with Iran
did indeed begin in 2011, during the extremist Ahmadinejad's presidency
– before harsh sanctions were imposed.
...
In a June 23, 2015 speech, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told about the American initiative, saying that it had begunduring
the Ahmadinejad presidency and had centered on U.S. recognition of a
nuclear Iran: "The issue of negotiating with the Americans is connected
to the term of the previous [Ahmadinejad] government, and to the
dispatching of a mediator to Tehran to request talks. At that time, a
dignified individual from the region [referring to Omani Sultan Qaboos]
came to visit me as a mediator, and said explicitly that the American
president [Obama] had asked him to come to Tehran and present the
Americans' request for negotiations. The Americans told this mediator:
'We want to solve the nuclear issue and lift sanctions within six
months, while recognizing Iran as a nuclear power.' I told this mediator
that I did not trust the Americans or their words, but I agreed, when
he persisted, to reexamine this issue, and the negotiations began."[2]
Some day, historians will wonder how the United States and the western 'powers' were played for such suckers. The answer is actually quite simple: There's a mole in the White House. He's been there since 2009.
Leader of Iranian green movement won't even shake hands with a Jew
Some of you might recall that in 2009, I kept asking all the Iranian greens I was following where they stood on Israel. If they weren't open to having diplomatic relations with us, I would ignore them. A curse on both their houses. I couldn't get a straight answer. I kept getting told it's not relevant now.
Now, I know for sure why I got that answer. Here's an English translation of the caption of the picture above.
“This is Iran’s deceased Ayatollah Montazeri (d. December, 2009) in the photograph where he rejected shaking the hand of a fellow Jewish Iranian. He declined the handshake because he did not want to become dirty (najis) and his cleanliness despoiled for his “Salaat” preparation (for prayer, as a Muslim), by contacting the (najis, infidel) Jew.” (thanks to S for the translation)
So yes, Ahmadinejad kissed the Neturei Karta nutjobs who showed up for his Holocaust denial conference. But they're a different kind of Jew.
The Associated Press (via the New York Post) describes how the Obama administration negotiated with Iran behind Prime Minister Netanyahu's back.
Before Rouhani’s election, while former Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad was in power, a tense U.S.-Iran relationship seemed
unavoidable.
But Obama was determined to test that. In March, a small hand-picked
group of officials led by Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and
Jake Sullivan, Biden’s top foreign policy adviser, boarded a military
plane for Oman to meet Iranian counterparts.
Their travel plans were not on any public itineraries. No reception greeted them as they landed.
It was at this first high-level gathering at a secure location in the
Omani capital of Muscat, famous for its souk filled with frankincense
and myrrh, that the Obama administration began laying the groundwork for
this weekend’s historic nuclear pact between world powers and Iran, The
Associated Press has learned.
The AP has learned that at least five secret meetings have occurred
between top Obama administration and Iranian officials since March.
Burns and Sullivan led each U.S. delegation. At the most recent
face-to-face talks, they were joined by chief U.S. nuclear negotiator
Wendy Sherman.
It was at the final get-together that the two sides ultimately agreed
on the contours of the pact signed before dawn Sunday by the so-called
P5+1 group of nations and Iran, three senior administration officials
told the AP. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they
weren’t authorized to be quoted by name talking about the sensitive
diplomacy.
The AP was tipped to the first U.S.-Iranian meeting in March shortly
after it occurred, but the White House and State Department disputed
elements of the account and the AP could not confirm the meeting. The AP
learned of further indications of secret diplomacy in the fall and
pressed the White House and other officials further. As the Geneva talks
between the P5+1 and Iran appeared to be reaching their conclusion,
senior administration officials confirmed to the AP the details of the
extensive outreach. They spoke only on condition of anonymity because
they were not authorized to discuss by name the secret talks.
Obama told Netanyahu about the meetings in late September on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. By then, Netanyahu had been tipped off by the Saudis.
Read the whole thing. There's much more. Obama went to great lengths to cover this up for as long as possible....
Scholastic apologizes for wiping Israel off the map
Benji Lovitt is a regular at bloggers' conferences....
After it was discovered Wednesday that thousands of children’s books had been shipped with Israel missing from a map,
Scholastic Press CEO Mahmoud Ahmadinejad apologized for the error,
saying, “We regret that Israel was wiped off the map. It never should
have appeared there in the first place.”
Sales of the book “Thea Stilton and the Blue
Scarab Hunt” soared in Iran on Wednesday, setting a single-day sales
record, surpassing the previous record-holders “Charlie and the
Uranium-Enriching Factory” and “Oh, the Countries You’ll Delegitimize!”
Through what was called by company spokesmen “a completely honest yet
wonderful mistake”, a map of the Middle East was printed with Israel
replaced by Jordan. While Sudan, Libya and Saudi Arabia appear clearly
on the map, the territory of Israel is completely covered by Jordan,
painted red.
...
Scholastic has grown to become the world’s
largest publisher and distributor of children’s books through its book
clubs, teaching resources, and Hamas summer camps.
On the same page as Ahmadinejad, but knows how to talk to westerners
What's the difference between Hassan Rohani and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Well, they've both been President of Iran, one wears a turban and the other doesn't. One has a thicker beard and glasses. Other than that, there don't seem to be any differences. Jonathan Tobin:
By demonstrating that he isn’t a cheap date but must instead be wooed
by the West with concessions, Rouhani gave us a good idea of the course
of the next round of negotiations that the United States is about to
embark upon with Iran. Instead of being eager to embrace Obama in order
to prove their desire for diplomacy and to avert the threat of Western
force being employed to end their nuclear dreams, the Iranians know that
Obama has already swallowed the bait. This wasn’t the first time
Rouhani had humiliated the West since he is a veteran of past deceptive
diplomatic encounters, but we also know it won’t be the last.
The White House’s disappointment at Rouhani being unwilling to shake hands with the president was absurd enough. But even the New York Times
was unable to spin the Iranian’s speech to the GA as anything but a
disappointment to those who have invested so heavily in the notion that
he represents an opportunity for genuine change in Iran.
Rouhani’s address can only be seen as “moderate” when compared to the
wacky rants of his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He didn’t deny the
Holocaust nor openly threaten Israel with destruction. But he gave
little satisfaction to those expecting him to inaugurate a new age of
understanding with a lengthy litany of complaints about the West as well
as an almost impenetrable barrage of double talk about Syria, nukes,
and terrorism.
Rouhani’s appeal for “tolerance” rang false, coming as it did from a
government that persecutes religious minorities and continues to be a
font of anti-Semitic incitement aimed at Israel and its supporters. The
same can be said of his denunciation of terrorism, coming as it did from
an official of a government that is the leading state sponsor of terror
in the world.
The West’s favorite “moderate” mullah met with a gaggle of liberal
mainstream media types Wednesday morning for a mostly off-the-record
gathering and, despite being unwilling to pander much to their
sensibilities, still left them thinking, in the words of New Yorker
editor David Remnick, “That at least on the surface this is somebody
who above all is interested in reversing the really consequential damage
to the economy that sanctions have wrought over time.”
I’ve no doubt that is true, as the conceit of Rouhani’s mission is
apparently to persuade the West that because he isn’t a raving lunatic
like his predecessor Ahmadinejad, that should be enough to earn Iran the
world’s trust. And the chief proof of this is his willingness to say
that it was a bad thing that the Nazis killed Jews. At Remnick’s
prodding, Rouhani said as much today. As Politico reports:
Toward the end of the meeting, Remnick, who had sparred with
Ahmadinejad in past meetings, demanded to know if Rouhani would
unequivocally reject his predecessor’s denial of the Holocaust.
Through an interpreter, Rouhani told Remnick and the other
journalists that he condemned the “massacre” of Jews that took place
during World War II but would leave it to historians to decide how many
Jews had been killed.
While stopping short of condemning the Holocaust outright, Rouhani
left Remnick with the impression that he was serious about improving
Iran’s relationship with the West.
That’s nice and no doubt Rouhani’s dignified manner and trademark white turban are a big improvement over Ahmadinejad’s MAD
magazine style charm, but if we’re really interested in the question of
repudiating Holocaust denial, Rouhani’s response doesn’t quite cut it.
Nor does his equally cagey answer to a similar question posed by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour
in which he segued from a pro-forma condemnation of the “taking of
human life, whether that life is Jewish life, Christian or Muslim” into
saying his non-support of Nazi genocide shouldn’t be interpreted as
being willing to recognize living Jews have rights, since that “does not
mean that on the other hand you can say Nazis committed crimes against a
group, now, therefore, they must usurp the land of another group and
occupy it.” The point is, if you are agnostic about the scale of the
Holocaust, you are, in effect, a denier. If you are against killing Jews
but unwilling to grant that they may have rights to a country or the
right to defend it, your supposedly moderate good intentions are
meaningless.
It turns out that Rouhani’s so-called condemnation of the Holocaust is
even flimsier than we thought. After CNN broadcast its interview with
Rouhani conducted by Christiane Amanpour, the FARS News Agency
condemned their translation of his remarks about the Holocaust as
largely a fabrication. The official organ of the Iranian government
provided an exact translation of what he said and matched it with what
CNN broadcast and then published on their website. When the two are
compared it is clear that the network expanded on what he said to help
convey the impression that he was condemning Holocaust denial when it is
clear that he did no such thing.
...
While the two have similarities, there is no doubt that the news outlet
airbrushed Rouhani’s comments to the point where they are far more
acceptable for a Western audience. The actual remarks make it clear that
Rouhani is as much of an agnostic about the extent of the Holocaust as
Ahmadinejad. After all, Rouhani’s predecessor never said that no Jews
were killed but said it was vastly exaggerated, the false argument that
all Holocaust deniers try to make.
Shades of Ahmadinejad: Left now claiming Rohani's speech 'mistranslated' or Rohani 'misquoted'
A few hours ago, I reported that 'moderate' new Iranian President Hassan Rohani, who will be inaugurated on Sunday, referred to Israel as a 'wound' on the body of the Islamic world that must be 'removed.'
The reactions were fast and furious. This one from Commentary's Jonathan Tobin is typical.
Since his election in a field in which he was supposedly the least
fanatic, Rouhani has done nothing to disillusion his legions of Western
fans, but while attending a solidarity event with Palestinians he
dropped his façade of moderation just long enough to give us a glimpse
of his real ideas. What he said was enough to show that the alleged
distance between his view and his old friend Iranian Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was not
very great after all. As the New York Times recounts:
Ahead of his inauguration, Iran’s new president on Friday called
Israel an “old wound” that should be removed, while tens of thousands of
Iranians marched in support of Muslim claims to the holy city of
Jerusalem. Hassan Rouhani’s remarks about Israel — his country’s
archenemy — echoed longstanding views of other Iranian leaders.
“The Zionist regime has been a wound on the body of the Islamic world
for years and the wound should be removed,” Rouhani was quoted as
saying by the semi-official ISNA news agency.
While we should expect Iran’s legion of apologists to try and find a
way to interpret this as not meaning exactly what it says, there’s
little doubt about Rouhani’s sentiments. Like all the non-moderates
whose views we were told he opposes, Rouhani believes Israel should be
destroyed. Considering that he is also a supporter of the country’s
drive for nuclear weapons, you don’t have to be a hawk or a neocon or
even the prime minister of Israel to connect the dots between his
beliefs and the threat that a nuclear Iran poses to understand that the
conviction that he offers a way out of the nuclear impasse is naive.
Except that... sure enough... there's traffic all over Twitter indicating that Rohani was 'misquoted' or that his words were 'mistranslated.' Reuters has gone so far as to issue a correction of sorts. It's saying that Iranian television is now saying that Rohani was 'misquoted.' Really? I'll wait for the MEMRI translation (which I trust, unlike all the Iranians on Twitter), but we have the video, and if this quote is correct it doesn't sound like he was misquoted.
Press TV then broadcast an excerpt from an
exchange between Rouhani and journalists at a rally to mark Iran's
annual Al Qods Day in support of the Palestinians.
"After
all, in our region there's been a wound for years on the body of the
Muslim world under the shadow of the occupation of the holy land of
Palestine and the beloved al-Qods (Jerusalem)," Rouhani said in the
segment.
The Arab-Muslim world does not differentiate between the 'occupation' of the '1967 territories' and the occupation of the '1948 territories.' For them, 'occupation' doesn't end at the 1949 armistice lines. They're one and the same. As far as the Arab-Muslim world is concerned, the entire state of Israel is 'occupying holy land of Palestine.'
Some of you may recall that when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad first started saying that he wanted to destroy Israel, there were similar claims that he was 'mistranslated' and 'misquoted.' They were wrong - if not out and out lies. I don't expect this time to be any different.
If Iran has to be hit, there's no better time than now
Evelyn Gordon points out that if Iran has to be hit in order to destroy its nuclear program, this is the best time the US and Israel have yet had to do it.
One of the biggest concerns that opponents of military action in both
Israel and America have always raised is the havoc Iran could wreak in
response an attack. For Israelis, the main fear is massive missile
attacks by both Iran and its allies; for Washington, the main concern is
Iran’s ability to disrupt oil trade from the Gulf and attack American
allies in that region.
But thanks to the Syrian civil war, the threat of Iranian retaliation
has been dramatically reduced. Partly, of course, that’s because two of
Iran’s principal allies, Syria and Hezbollah, are too preoccupied with
that war to be able to mount serious reprisals against anyone. But even
more importantly, the tremendous importance Iran attaches to Syria gives
both Israel and America a powerful lever with which to restrain any
Iranian reprisals.
Iran has poured billions
of dollars and thousands of crack fighters–from Hezbollah,
Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, and its own Revolutionary Guards
Corps–into propping up Bashar Assad’s regime in Syria, because it deems
Assad’s survival strategically vital. As one senior Iranian cleric explained
in February, “Syria is the 35th province [of Iran] and a strategic
province for us. If the enemy attacks us and wants to take either Syria
or Khuzestan [in western Iran], the priority for us is to keep Syria….If
we keep Syria, we can get Khuzestan back too, but if we lose Syria, we
cannot keep Tehran.”
...
But there are two players who have thus far chosen to sit out the
game who are definitely capable of swinging the war in the rebels’
favor: America and Israel. Both have the capacity to mount airstrikes
that would destroy Assad’s air force and tanks, which have hitherto
given him a huge advantage over the rebels. And both could make it clear
to Iran that they would do so if its reprisals crossed any red lines.
Though America has the military might to threaten Iran directly,
Syria is a much easier target, with the added bonus that any such
operation would be immensely popular with its Arab allies. Hence for
Washington, the ability to threaten Syria lowers the cost of deterring
Iran. Israel, in contrast, lacks the military capacity to threaten Iran
directly with anything bigger than a targeted operation against its
military facilities. Thus for Jerusalem, the ability to threaten Syria
is the difference between having almost no deterrence against Iranian
reprisals and having very substantial deterrence.
It's only natural for a President in his last days in office to look back nostalgically on the 'successes' of his administration (Hat Tip: Hot Air via Shy Guy).
Outgoing Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday described his denial of the
Holocaust as one of his greatest achievements, the Fars news agency
reported.
"That
was a taboo topic that no one in the West allowed to be heard,"
Ahmadinejad said in a speech looking back at his time in office. He had
enough courage to bring up the issue, he said.
"That broke the spine of the Western capitalist regime," he claimed.
I can't wait to hear what President Hussein Obama claims as his greatest achievement. Perhaps breaking the spine of the Western capitalist regime?
A decree that was given in the name of the King and signed by the King cannot be withdrawn?
The title of this post is based on a verse in Esther 8 in which, after the nefarious Haman's plot to murder all the Jews is exposed, King Xerxes tells Queen Esther that he cannot withdraw the decree calling on his subjects to murder all the Jews in his kingdom because a decree that was given in the name of the King and signed by the King cannot be withdrawn. So instead, he issued a decree allowing the Jews to defend themselves.... We all know the rest of the story.
Under pressure from the 'international community' the Russian government in 2010 signed a decree that no S-300 anti-missile defense systems would be sold to Iran. That was before they figured out that the current occupant of the White House really had adopted a policy of degrading America's military capabilities. But since the decree was issued, they don't want to violate. So they are going to sell Iran a variant of the S-300 - called the Antey 2500 or S-300 VM - instead. What's the difference? Not much (Hat Tip: MFS- The Other News). This is from the first link.
"The cancellation of the decree signed by Dmitry Medvedev in 2010 [on severing the contact for S-300] is not under consideration," a Kremlin source told Kommersant. "We are considering the possibility of supplying Iran with systems not falling under the restrictions," he said.
The sources close to the military-technological cooperation system
said the matter could imply possible shipments of Antei-2500 systems to
Iran, which are a modified version of the S-300V system designed for
ground forces and which are not legally subject to the 2010 decree.
"If our Iranian partners accept our proposal, this would help
strengthen Russia's positions as a reliable partner in
military-technological cooperation. This will also be a reason for Iran
to withdraw its lawsuit from a court and put an end to this dispute,
which nobody needs," a source close to the Rosoboronexport agency said.
The newspaper said it could not obtain official comments on the matter.
A source close to the Iranian Foreign Ministry also told Kommersant that the issue could be among the key ones to be addressed at Russian President Vladimir Putin's
meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on July 1, when the
Iranian leader would be attending a summit of the Gas Exporting
Countries Forum (GECF).
"Only one month is left before the end of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's
presidential term, and if he did not have some expectations regarding
arms supplies, he would not travel only to attend the GECF summit," he
said.
Najjar said 72 percent of the 50 million eligible Iranians had turned
out to vote, and that Rohani had secured just over the 50 percent of
the vote needed to avoid a run-off.
The outcome is unlikely to transform relations
between Iran and the outside world, the Islamic Republic's disputed policy on
developing nuclear power or its support of Syria's president in the civil war
there - all sensitive security matters that are the domain of Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
But the president does wield important influence
in decision-making in the sprawling Shi'ite Muslim nation and major OPEC state
of 75 million and could bring a change from the confrontational style of
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was constitutionally barred from seeking a
third consecutive term.
Rohani's wide early margin revealed a major
reservoir of pro-reform sentiment whereby many voters seized a chance to
repudiate the dominant hardline elite over Iran's economic woes, international
isolation and crackdowns on personal freedoms despite restrictions on candidate
choice and campaigning.
Rohani, a moderate who is a former
chief nuclear negotiator known for his conciliatory approach, has signaled he
will promote a foreign policy based on "constructive interaction with the world"
and enact a "civil rights charter" at home.
Iran’s presidential office says a helicopter carrying President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad has made an emergency landing after an unspecified
"accident."
The president's website said no one on board was hurt.
It said the helicopter carrying the president and a number of other
officials had an “accident” on June 2, adding that the pilot managed to
land the aircraft safely in the Alborz Mountains.
A statement posted on the website president.ir said that, after the
landing, Ahmadinejad officially opened a road tunnel in a mountainous
region of northeast Iran before he “returned to Tehran by car."
It did not give any more details about what happened in the incident.
How many of you remember Daniel, the 16-year old who faced down an anti-Semitic Muslim mob in Los Angeles in 2010 (video here) and subsequently made aliya.
Daniel Pereg is back with a message (in Persian with English subtitles) for Iran.
If North Korea is capable of delivering a ballistic missile mounted on a nuclear weapon, could Iran be far behind?
Iran has been closely linked to North Korea’s missile and nuclear
programs. Analysts suspect that Iranian assistance was critical in rapidly advancing North Korea’s missile program. Iranian missile experts are thought to have been on the ground during North Korea’s recent rocket launch, and there have reportedly been high-level meetings between Iranian and North Korean officials on the issue.
On the nuclear front, Pyongyang has developed its nuclear arsenal
despite international sanctions and diplomatic efforts. In 2003, North
Korea unilaterally withdrew from the Treat on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons. The country tested nuclear weapons in 2006, 2009, and
in February 2013.
The February 2013 test was suspected at the time of being a mechanism for Iran to outsource its nuclear development
to North Korea, with a U.S. official saying that “it’s very possible
that the North Koreans are testing for two countries.” Suspicions
heightened earlier this month when it emerged
that the North Koreans had taken unusually stringent measures to shield
the composition of the blast from detection. It is feared that the
explosion was uranium-based rather than plutonium-based, as had been the
previous two tests.
North Korea is not known to possess a pathway to creating
weapons-grade uranium. Meanwhile the Iranian program largely focuses on
enriching uranium, with Tehran making moves to activate a plutonium
pathway only recently.
Any uranium bomb tested in North Korea would functionally be treated as
an Iranian bomb, either directly or because Iran had transferred the
technology to build it.
Meanwhile Western officials have drawn parallels between how the two
countries developed nuclear weapons, with an emphasis on the need to
prevent Iran from following North Korea’s example and using negotiations
to stall for time while developing the infrastructure necessary for
acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
And yet Iran continues to do just that, and the West continues to go along via the P 5+1 talks.... And Iran is a bigger threat.
Iran would also be different from other nuclear rogue states. The
West often fears a nuclear Pakistan, given that a large part of its
tribal lands is ungovernable and overrun with Islamic radicals. Its
government is friendly to the West only to the degree that American aid
continues.
Yet far larger and more powerful India deters nuclear Pakistan. For
all the wild talk from both the Pakistani government and tribal
terrorists, there is general fear in Pakistan that India has superior
conventional and nuclear forces. India is also unpredictable and not the
sort of nation that can be periodically threatened and shaken down for
concessions.
Iran has no comparable existential enemy of a billion people — only a
tiny Israel of some seven million. The result is that there is no
commensurate regional deterrent.
Nor does Iran have a tough master like nuclear China. Even Beijing
finally pulls on the leash when its unpredictable North Korean client
has threatened to bully neighbors and create too unprofitable a fuss.
Of course, China enjoys the angst that its subordinate causes its
rivals. It also sees North Korea as a valuable impediment to a huge,
unified, and Westernized Korea on its borders. But that said, China does
not want a nuclear war in its backyard. That fact ultimately means
North Korea is muzzled once its barking becomes too obnoxious.
A nuclear Iran would worry about neither a billion-person nuclear
existential enemy nearby such as India, nor a billion-person patron such
as China that would establish redlines to its periodic madness.
Instead, Tehran would be free to do and say what it pleased. And its
nuclear status would become a force multiplier to its enormous oil
wealth and self-acclaimed world leadership of Shiite Muslims.
If North Korea has been a danger, then a bigger, richer, and undeterred nuclear Iran would be a nightmare.
Meanwhile Nero Obama continues to fiddle and to send his minions to talk about linkage. Get ready for nuclear war, folks. It's coming.
Kerry first visited Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has
resisted new talks for most of the past four years. His government had
sought to file a complaint against Israel with the International
Criminal Court over home-building in Jerusalem but put the plan on hold
shortly before Kerry arrived.
Kerry was expected to ask Abbas to drop or suspend the complaint as a
way to build confidence among Israeli leaders that talks can be
fruitful, Arab officials said.
and
Israel and Turkey must stick to their agreement to end a nearly
three-year estrangement as a building block for wider Middle East
peacemaking, Kerry said Sunday.
Kerry did not sugarcoat concern that politics in Turkey could delay or
derail the deal struck last month among Obama and the volatile leaders
of the two key U.S. allies. Kerry added stops in Turkey and Israel to an
unrelated trip to shore up that agreement.
...
“The foreign minister has expressed very clearly to me, in response to
an inquiry by me, that they have taken steps to try to prevent any kind
of sense of triumphalism,” Kerry said.
In the first case, what exactly is the Palestinian concession? The
Palestinians under the leadership of Mahmoud Abbas violated the premise
of bilateral negotiations by pursuing cases against Israel in
international fora. This was a policy consciously adopted by Abbas and
specifically spelled out in a New York Times op-ed nearly two years ago.
Abandoning a violation of an agreement is hardly a concession, but the
reporter (apparently reflecting Secretary Kerry's view) calls this a
"confidence building measure." If that's a confidence building measure
then the Palestinians have hit upon an excellent strategy: violate other
terms of their agreements with Israel and offer to stop the violation
in return for some concrete Israeli action.
In the latter case note the parallelism of the reporter. While he
mentions "politics in Turkey" he also refers to the "volatile leaders"
of Israel and Turkey. But the "volatile leader" of Turkey is responsible
for those politics; what is the "volatile leader" of Israel responsible
for?
It's good that Secretary Kerry brought up the issue of tone with
Davutoglu, but will he push him? Will Kerry tell Turkey that the
country's leadership is squandering a chance to repair relations with
Israel and further American interests and that the United States will
hold the government responsible for this failure?
It would appear that the United States has the possibility of using an
opportunity here. But will it allow its enemies - I'm including Turkey
as an enemy - to dictate the terms of the future of the Middle East, or
will it assert itself? Unfortunately, there is little in this article to
suggest that the former is true.
2) The language of destruction
Remember the flap a few years ago if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really said
that he intended to wipe Israel off the map? It was treated by many as a
curiosity. Surely has statement was exagerrated was due to a bad
translation or a misunderstanding of Iranian culture and idioms.
Prof. Joshua Teitelbaum and Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael (Mickey) Segal have put together a comprehensive look at statements and threats (.pdf) made by Iranian leadership over the years. Their conclusion:
It is manifestly clear that the statements of Iran’s leaders continue to
constitute incitement to genocide of the people of Israel. They remain
alarmingly similar to the coded statements of
incitement that preceded the Rwandan genocide of the Tutsis in 1994, and
should therefore alarm all peace-loving people.
There is ample legal basis for the prosecution of Ahmadinejad and other
Iranian leaders in the International Court of Justice and the
International Criminal Court for direct and public incitement
to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.
Perhaps it would be better not to describe Erdogan's statements about Zionism as a mere "flap." 3) The meaning of a selection
Jonathan Schanzer analyzes the recent selection of Hamas.
Notably absent in this leadership selection process was Turkey, which
has become a rather outspoken champion of Hamas in recent years. Last
year, Ankara reportedly provided $300 million to Hamas. It continues to
export goods to Gaza and help with costly reconstruction projects after
the 2012 conflict with Israel. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan recently
announced he would visit Gaza, too. Yet, Turkey does not figure
prominently in the new leadership structure (that we know of).
Nor is Sudan's role reflected in the new make-up, but Meshal is a
frequent visitor to Khartoum, where the Bashir regime coordinates
closely with the regime in Tehran. While Iran-Hamas-Sudan ties have been
documented for years, Haniyeh's selection, to some extent, reinforces
the importance of Hamas' close ties with both Sudan and Iran, which
furnishes short-and long-range rockets and other weaponry to the
Palestinian terrorist groups.
In other words, the Hamas leadership selection reflects absolutely no
changes in the group's approach to terrorism or rejectionism. Meshal,
during a visit to Gaza in December, vowed that Hamas would continue its
strategy of violence against Israel. With a new four-year term, it's
reasonable to expect more of the same.
This attachment to Iran is important, because Egypt - acting out of its
own self-interest - has not been the most reliable ally for Hamas
recently. A few days ago Egypt seized an Iranian ship apparently bringing arms to the Sinai.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
